Futsol, Rerouting of Goods, Paying Utilities, Dancing, Cockroaches

The Asian Futsol (indoor soccer) Championships were in Tashkent recently. Myself and another expat went to the third place game last Sunday between Japan and China. Actually pretty exciting to watch. Japan was the way better team though and won easily. The game ended at about 4 and the final, between Iran and UZ-BEK-I-STAN (lots of chanting even during the third place game) didn't start till 6 so we decided not to stick around. On the way out we saw something that, well, was a good exmaple of state-society relations here, at least I thought so. We got to the exit and people were already starting to arrive for the final. Rather than letting them on, or just letting them wait outside, the police formed a barrier between the stadium and the waiting crowd. Seemed a little tense...we got out and moved along quickly.

I often see things in the stores here that make me think, 'hmmmm I don't think that was originally meant to be sold here.' It's nothing overly exciting but for example, yesterday I went to the corner store to buy sugar cubes. The only ones they had were packaged in Uzbek Airways boxes. Ah well, worked well for me.

Bills here are moistly pay-as-you-go, including basic utilities. It means that if you are not completely paid in full at the start of the billing period they will cut you off, either immediatley or within about 4-5 days. I can pay my internet bill myself but electricity, water, gas and my home phone have to get paid by my landlord. She's been very good about paying it but was out of town this week and just come back yesterday. Anyway, I met up with her last night to pay rent and give the monthly meter readings for all the utilities which she then pays at the post office. No sooner has she left than the house phone rang with a recorded message from the phone company saying the house phone would be shut off if not paid soon (I didn't catch when exaclty). I called my landlord and she said she'd pay today, and she will. But geeez, some things are quite strict here.

Last night I went for dinner with a few others at a restaurant called Sim-Sim. It's a good place, very big with large rooms that get rented out for parties. A bit expensive for here, but then I paid about $8 for a huge meal and drinks, so overall not too bad. Sitting nearby our group was a table of 5-6 middle-age teachers celebrating the end of the school year. They were really celebrating too, polishing off bottle after bottle of vodka. Eventually a band that was making the rounds between the different rooms made it to where we were siting. Pretty cool actually, they just sat down at a table in the room and starting playing. Anyway, those Uzbek teachers loved to dance, with eachother. Did I mention they were all men? I guess it's very common here, but was still definitely a site to behold.

Later in the evening I was walking back to my apartment. You can still smoke indoors in Uzbekistan so my eyes stinging a bit and I was rubbing them which I guess pushed my contacts out of place. I was walking through an underpass and thought, 'weird, the ground seems to be moving a bit.' I stopped, blinked for a few second to let me eyes clear and then I realized...cockroaches. Everywhere. I got through there pretty quick.